Behind the scenes of the audiobook industry:
An exclusive interview with USA Today bestselling author (and narrator), Pamela Fagan Hutchins.
Pamela Fagan Hutchins is the author of romantic mystery, thriller and suspense novels, as well as several nonfiction works.
Welcome, Pamela! Tell us about your author journey.
I’ve always been a writer, at least according to my parents and third grade teacher, but was first published in 2013 with Saving Grace. It’s the series lead for my What Doesn’t Kill You mystery series. I have 18 novels in the series, plus a few novellas and short stories. I’ve also written six nonfiction books.
Before I became an author I was an attorney and an investigator. My husband really pushed me to write. He’s my biggest fan, and also now my story-boarding partner. After the success of my first four novels, I was able to give up my old job for a full time writer’s life, and it has been amazing.
Congratulations on being a USA Today bestselling author and a Silver Falchion Best Mystery Winner. How did these accolades come about?
The Silver Falchion win was the biggest moment of my career to date. To have my book Fighting for Anna up against the best mystery writers in the game — people I read and idolize — and then to win on the same night that J.A. Jance won Best Thriller – well, there just are no words.
Fighting for Anna is the book I’m most proud of, and not just because of that win. I wrote it at a time when I had been very sick and struggling, and wasn’t sure if I could write any more. I actually wrote it by dictating it into a handheld recorder, and then transcribing it (you could hear my baby goat in the background sometimes!).
About a year later, I teamed up with some wonderful romantic suspense and mystery writers for a box set benefitting Pets for Vets. I contributed a novella called Buckle Bunny for the box set, which was called Love Under Fire.
Reaching USA Today bestseller status was the second-biggest moment of my career so far. (And the third was when Robert Dugoni wrote a blurb for my Maggie Killian Trilogy of Live Wire, Sick Puppy, and Dead Pile. <3)
Do you work on more than one project at once? Does this help or hinder you?
I love writing a trilogy all at once. I brainstorm the books with my story partner, then outline them, then write first drafts of each one. Only then can I step back and look at the big picture. This allows me to carry storylines seamlessly through multiple books with consistency and clarity. After a lot of thinking and rearranging, I go back and finish up all the books. I love doing it this way, and the trilogies each then become part of a larger super series.
What brought about your decision to produce your work in audio?
I absolutely love audio books, and remember the days I would check books out in big boxes of cassette tapes, and lug them back and forth. When I got the chance to have audiobooks produced for my novels, I was over the moon. To create the format for readers that I loved best? Yippee!
It’s been a blast seeing them come to fruition. While I still write as a primary occupation, I have loved it so much, that I now also do audio narration too, for my own most recent books, and I’m starting to do narration for other authors as well.
What are you passionate about?
I am passionate about my hunky husband (my gosh, he gets better looking every year, and is the foundation for every love interest I write!), my adult children, my rescue dogs, our Snowheresville mountain cabin in Wyoming, and our draft cross horses, especially my plus-sized princess, Kitty Kat.
In writing, I get really fired up about creating authentic characters who readers can relate to and find 100% believable. On the flip side, nothing turns me off faster than two-dimensional characters, or characters whose traits and actions don’t ring true.
AudioFreebies.com thanks Pamela for making herself available for this exclusive interview.
Connect with Pamela Fagan Hutchins:
- Free starter library of Pamela Fagan Hutchins ebooks: https://www.subscribepage.com/PFHSuperstars
- Website: http://pamelafaganhutchins.com
- Email: [email protected]
- BookBub: https://www.bookbub.com/authors/pamela-fagan-hutchins
- Facebook http://facebook.com/pamela.fagan.hutchins.author
- Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/author/pamelafaganhutchins
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/pamela_fagan_hutchins/
- Goodreads: http://www.goodreads.com/pamelafaganhutchins
- YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/pamelafaganhutchins
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